[Avodah] Matana Al M'nas L'hachzir

[Akiva Miller via Avodah]

I had another idea a few days ago. I would like to suggest that mitzvas
chinuch does NOT require us to concoct halachic mechanisms to enable the
katan to do the mitzvos with all its details. Rather, it is totally
acceptable for a child to do a mitzvah in a partial manner, and the parent
is doing his chinuch thereby, provided that the parent explains this to the
child. Something along the lines of "You're still learning how to do it, so
even if you only do this much, that's great."

I'll give two examples of where we do exactly that: Older children who do a
partial fast on Yom Kippur. And children of any age who say a partial
Birkas Hamazon. An adult who would do such things is clearly not fully
yotzay, even b'dieved, but for kids it is acceptable, and one can find many
other examples. So perhaps it is fine for a katan to use a borrowed lulav
even on the first day (just as an adult can use it on Chol HaMoed)?

Akiva Miller
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